Baby Boomers could irreversibly ruin the planet for Millennials — and the clock is ticking

Twenty-nine years ago, James Hansen, the director of NASA's
Institute for Space Studies, told the US Senate that the question
of the day - whether climate change was happening - was no longer
in doubt.

"It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is
pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here," Hansen told
reporters at the time.

Hansen's testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources on June 23, 1988 - coincidentally the hottest
June 23
in the District of Columbia's recorded history - is
frequently considered the most important climate change hearing
in history.

The greenhouse effect that Hansen described - in which the
widespread combustion of fossil fuels causes a heat-trapping
buildup of gases like carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere -
has since become almost common knowledge. For more than 400,000 years,
the concentration of atmospheric CO2 fluctuated between just
under 180 and 300 parts per million (ppm). Levels are now over
400 ppm and climbing.

The most alarming consequences of that change, like an
uninhabitable planet,
are still far off. But the near-term effects of climate
change, things people alive today will see, include rising sea
levels, exaggerated temperature extremes, and stronger hurricanes
and typhoons.

The question Hanson's testimony raised was what would be done
about that threat. Leading scientists had spoken; political
leaders had the information; and even ExxonMobil researchers
had privately concluded that "major reductions in fossil fuel
combustion" would be needed to prevent "potentially catastrophic
events," according to prizewinning investigative reporting.

But the answer to that question, nearly 30 years later, is pretty
much nothing.

The more time passes, the more difficult and expensive fixing the
climate problem will get. Hansen is still sounding alarms - in a
study
published this week, he calculated that future generations could
be forced to spend more than $530 trillion cleaning C02 out of
the atmosphere (something we don't yet know how to do). For
context, the entire US budget is about $4
trillion annually.

That's quite a burden to leave the children of the future.

The leaders that got us here

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Concern for the future.

source

Kevin Loria/Business Insider

After Hansen's testimony, the
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works sent a letter to
Lee Thomas, the EPA administrator,
asking for an examination of policy options that would help
stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.

"It was shelved," Mary Wood, head
of the University of Oregon School of Law's Environmental and
Natural Resources Law Center, told Business Insider.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush, who would take the presidential oath
the following January,
vowed to "fight the greenhouse effect with the White House
effect."

That didn't happen. In fact, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, Bush famously declared that "the American way of life is
not up for negotiation."

The members of the 101st Congress in 1989 hailed mostly from the
Silent Generation (the
average age was about 53) and to be fair, they were stuck
with a problem created by past generations, too. But by the time
those leaders were in power, they had access to knowledge about
the scale of the problem that previous generations'
representatives did not.

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10 of the hottest years and history have happened in the last 20 years.

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REUTERS/Stringer

Of course,
behavioral psychologists and economists know that humans aren't
good at coming together to deal with problems whose consequences
seem far off.

"On any issue, it takes an enormous amount of effort to overcome
the status quo," environmentalist and author Bill McKibben told
Business Insider. "In the case of climate change, it's doubly
hard, since you have to deal with the entire world. In a certain
way, we shouldn't be too surprised about how difficult it's all
been."

But the biggest barrier to action hasn't been cooperation, nor a
lack of information.

"It turned out that we were not engaged in an argument for which
more evidence and data was the cure - we'd won the argument long
ago," McKibben said. "It was a fight, and it was about money and
power … And that one we were losing."

The power of money and misinformation

Energy company executives have long known the scientific
consensus on global warming. Exxon leaders were informed by
company scientists that there was general scientific agreement on
the topic in the 1970s. Oil giant Shell created a film in 1991
explaining the future threats of extreme weather, flood, famine,
and climate-related conflict.

But they also knew that a serious fight against climate change
would hurt their businesses, and lobbied against regulation.

In the early 2000s, groups connected to energy billionaires like
the Koch brothers also started funding efforts to discredit
climate science. As Jane Mayer explained in her book "Dark
Money," political consultant Frank Luntz showed these groups
how to persuade voters that the science wasn't clear.

"On cue, organizations funded and directed by the Kochs tore into
global warming science and the experts behind it," Mayer wrote.
From 2005 to 2008, the Kochs spent almost $25 million funding
anti-climate groups, according to the book.

Such groups poured money into political campaigns, directed at
candidates (often Republicans) who voiced doubts about the
established science.
According to a 2013 study, organizations connected to fossil
fuel companies have spent almost half a billion dollars on "a
deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public
discussion and distort the public's understanding of climate."

And lo and behold, political inaction continued. In 2001, George
W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which would have gone into
effect and required emissions cuts by 2008. (Bill Clinton
initially signed it.)

In the most recent presidential election, Republican candidates
had already been
given a total of more than $100 million from fossil fuel
barons by March 2016. President Trump's administration is now
full of officials who don't accept the scientific consensus on
climate change.

"A government decision maker that has taken money from the fossil
fuel industry cannot simply turn around and take action on the
climate the next day," Wood said. "They've been compromised,
they've breached the duty of loyalty."

The influence that fossil fuels companies now have in politics,
Wood added, has created a conflict of interest between government
officials and citizens that's "the size of the Gulf of Mexico."
Ironically, the Gulf is particularly at risk of being destroyed
by the
thousands of oil spills that happen there every year.

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Deepwater Horizon was particularly bad, but the Gulf sees thousands of oil spills.

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REUTERS/Sean Gardner/Files

A straightforward solution

Those in office during Hansen's initial testimony may have been
part of the Silent Generation, but by the 111th Congress in 2011,
the average age of leaders in the House and Senate marked them as
Baby Boomers. And their generation has failed to confront the
problem, too.

Of course, it's wrong to blame two full generations for our
climate crisis (as tempting as that may be for Millennials, Gen Z
and the generations to come). Many members of those generations
have spent their lives pushing for solutions, and it's unfair to
villainize the average layperson for the actions of politicians
or the 100 companies that are responsible for
71% of global carbon emissions since 1988.

However, the window in which action can still avert the most
devastating consequences of climate change is rapidly shrinking.
Hansen recently told reporters that his new study suggests
putting the problem off for even a few more years could create a
situation where "the costs of trying to maintain a livable planet
may be too high to bear."

That means that the Baby Boomers currently running our country
and energy companies are in a unique position. They may be our
last line of defense, our final chance to fix the situation.

"It's a historic moment, because we're at the last possible
moment of opportunity to avert irrevocable catastrophe," Wood
said.

"The
irony of all this is that it's been entirely clear from the
beginning what we need to do," McKibben said. "It has to look
like the very rapid conversion to 100% renewable energy."

Eventually, the world will run out of fossil fuels and be forced
to make that switch - though if we burn through all oil, gas, and
coal before we do so, the planet will be drastically different.
Many researchers believe the right policies can facilitate a much
faster transition.

"We undertake enormous expenditures to do things that we think
are in the long term interest, national security expenses for
example, undertaken with a view that they protect us against
future threats," Larry
Karp, an economist at UC Berkeley, told Business Insider.

Wood also likens the threat of climate change - and necessary
action - to military efforts.

"There was certainly a consensus in World War II when everyone
stepped up to the threat. Car manufacturers made military
equipment, toy manufacturers made gun bets - that kind of war
effort was incredible then and that's exactly what's needed now,"
said Wood. "It takes a real leader to meet that threat."

There are substantial bipartisan arguments in favor of switching
to renewable energy: It's the only way for the
US to achieve energy independence, and the falling price of
renewables has already created a market trend towards cleaner
energy.

Plus, the cost of such a transition would be far cheaper than the
alternative. A 2014 report by
the International Energy Agency estimated that transitioning
away from fossil fuels by 2050 would cost the world $44 trillion.
But by cutting fuel use, the
report estimates, we'd avoid $115 trillion in fuel costs,
which would more pay for the switch.

Rising activism around the world

As older leaders continue to stall, millions of individuals in
younger generations are now pushing for policies and investments
that could avert the worst effects of climate change.

"It became clear, we've got to organize for some power of our
own," said McKibben - a Boomer who's devoted his career to this
cause.

Competing with oil and gas interests isn't viable on a financial
level. But political mobilization is.

McKibben's organization 350.org, is filled with young activists
leading initiatives to fight projects like the Keystone Pipeline
and other new oil, coal, and gas developments.

Climate-related lawsuits are on the rise around the world as
well. In the US, a group of 21 kids, aged 9 to 21, are currently
suing the federal government. They argue that by engaging in
actions that contribute to climate change despite long-held
knowledge of its dangerous consequences, the government has
violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and
property.

caption

The youth plaintiffs at the People's Climate March in Washington DC

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Robin Loznak Photography

Hansen's granddaughter Sophie Kivlehan is one of those kids. And
if their lawsuit succeeds, they'd establish a fundamental right
to a stable climate and compel agencies to pursue that goal.

Advocacy like this has contributed to the emergence of a stronger
global consensus about the need to curb emissions.

"Paris was a success, though you have to squint a little bit to
see it - at least everyone agreed there was a problem," McKibben
said.

Although President Trump has said he will pull the US out of the
agreement, cities and states around the country are vowing to
meet its emissions reductions goals anyway. Other countries,
including China and the EU, have said they plan to stick to their
pledges no matter what.

The question, however, is whether any of these efforts can yield
results quickly enough.

"In order to catch up with the physics of climate change we have
to go at an exponential rate," McKibben said. "It's not as if
this was a static problem. If we don't get to it very soon, we'll
never get to it."

The looming cliff

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Glaciers are receding rapidly around the globe.

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Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

More Gen Xers and Millennials are assuming positions of authority
every day. But the threat of climate change is quickly getting
harder to deal with.

I am a Millennial - I was born five years before Hansen's
testimony - and I'm also a new father. I wonder every day if we
will solve this in time for my son to avoid the most disastrous
versions of climate model projections.

"He's going to look back and think, 'what the hell were you all
thinking,'" McKibben said of my son. "And the answer will be that
we weren't thinking enough."

"Huge swaths of the world will be living in places that by the
end of the century will have heat waves so deep that people won't
be able to deal with them, you have sea level rising
dramatically, to the point that most of the world's cities are
drowning, the ocean turning into a hot, sour, breathless soup as
it acidifies and warms," McKibben said.

The legislators currently in power could not, of course, be held
responsible for that stark future. And they're not to blame for a
problem that started at the beginning of the industrial era. But
by virtue of their position at this moment, they're the ones with
the power to finally do something.

"They're sitting in a historic moment that is cast upon them by
nature itself," Wood said. "Everybody in the future will know
that we sat in this one fleeting moment of time. Everybody will
know who stood up and who stood on the sidelines."